Italy’s High Court decide to Rule in Amanda Knox Case

Email

ROME — More than seven years after an American undergraduate student, Amanda, and her Italian boyfriend were accused of murdering a British exchange student, Italy’s highest court is set to issue a final ruling, one that could push the issue of her handover from the United States.

The ruling from the Court of termination is expected Wednesday after a judicial odyssey that has seen Ms. Knox and her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, convicted in 2009 and cleared two years later, only to have their acquittals thrown out in 2013.

They were retried, and in January 2014 a second appellate court upheld the original conviction, sentencing Ms. Knox to 28 ½ years in prison and Mr. Sollecito to 25.

Italian judges must now rule on whether to confirm their convictions and prison terms, which could set in motion an extradition process for Ms. Knox, who returned to Washington State upon her acquittal in 2011 after four years in prison and vowed never to return to Italy in the case of a conviction. Or the court could order new appellate trials for one or both. A third person, Rudy Guede of Ivory Coast, was also convicted and is halfway through his 16-year sentence.

Ms. Knox, like Mr. Sollecito, maintains she is innocent in the killing of Meredith Kercher, a University of Leeds student, who was found half-naked in her locked room, her throat slit, one morning in November 2007.

Regardless of the outcome, Wednesday’s ruling is likely to fuel the zealous whodunit debate that has long surrounded the case.

The protagonists were all studying in Perugia, a university town in central Italy popular with foreigners. Their good looks and youth — Ms. Kercher was 21 when she died; Ms. Knox, a year younger; Mr. Sollecito, 23; and Mr. Guede, 20 — juxtaposed with the heinousness of the crime made the case irresistible to tabloid, mainstream and social media alike.

On dozens of websites, the killing’s minutiae — motive, alibis, forensic evidence, witness accounts — have been debated with obsessive detail.

For some, the case came to serve as a cautionary tale of young Americans running wild while studying in a foreign country.

For others — mostly her supporters in the United States — Ms. Knox came to be seen as the innocent victim of a perplexing foreign legal system. That opinion will be reinforced among supporters of Ms. Knox should the Court of Cassation confirm her guilt.

“People are mistrustful of results they don’t like, especially in a foreign country, and many Americans don’t like the results,” said Julian Ku, a professor of international law at Hofstra University.

But, he added, “a lot of folks in England would feel the same way about an acquittal.” Both sides “are ready to denounce the verdict, whichever way it goes,” he said.

If the court upholds a conviction, attention will shift from Italy’s judicial procedures to its diplomatic sphere. An extradition request — were Italy to make one — would probably be granted, Professor Ku said.

“In these cases, the United States normally extradites because they are constantly asking other countries to extradite,” he said. “It would weaken the United States’ case when it asks other countries to return people.”

At the same time, extradition “would be politically unpopular because she’s so popular and gets so much attention,” Professor Ku added. “It will be hard.”

Francesco Maresca, a lawyer who represents the Kercher family, said his clients would push for Ms. Knox’s extradition should the court find her guilty. “The family wants to get to the bottom of this case, and if that means extradition, then it means we will do this, too.”

Despite the strong feelings of each side, an extradition would be unlikely to provoke diplomatic tensions between Italy and the United States, predicted Alessandro Colombo, a professor of international relations at the University of Milan.

“Maybe there will be a wave of emotion initially,” he said, “but there have been more important cases, infinitely more serious, that have not had any consequences on Italian-American relations.”

Thirty years ago, extradition requests would have been politicized, he added. “Now even political questions are remanded to the private sphere,” Professor Colombo said.

Lieve Gies, a senior researcher at the University of Leicester who studied the impact of social media in the case, believes the public’s fascination with Ms. Kercher’s killing will not end with the Court of Cassation’s ruling.

“It’s an exceptional case; usually accused have their day in court, their day in the news media, and we move on as audiences,” she said. “I don’t think this will happen. People will be pulling over this case over and over again.”